


three hours too soon

by ShadowSpires



Series: Countdown to Clone Wars 2020 [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Entirely Ignores Almost All of the Sequel Trilogy, Gen, Gen for the moment -- subject to change, Time Travel Fix-It, picks up before The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22386199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpires/pseuds/ShadowSpires
Summary: Surrounded by squandered promise and life-cut short, Obi-Wan, the Negotiator, High General Obi-Wan Kenobi, dug in his heels.No.This was not to be borne. This could not be right, could not be fate.
Series: Countdown to Clone Wars 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612177
Comments: 21
Kudos: 397





	three hours too soon

**Author's Note:**

> I'm blaming BlackKat for this, because reasons, lol. Time Travel inspiration. Delving into Clone Wars and reminding me how much I love it? Various things like that.

"Better three hours too soon than a minute too late." -- William Shakespeare, _The Merry Wives of Windsor._

~~~

Being dead was weird. It was easy to lose track of time and place and simply sink into the currents of the Force. Only the remnants of the training bond he had formed with Luke in the few precious days he'd had to spend with his Padawan's son kept him grounded. He could join the Force fully any time he wanted, but he stayed. He stayed to see the rebirth of the order he had watched fall to ruin around him. He knew that when Luke passed into the force Obi-Wan would probably let himself go find all those who had gone before him, let himself find out what happened next, and maybe rejoin old friends. But for now there was joy to be had in watching the young ones grow.

“Leyash is looking forward to seeing you.” Luke teased softly as he settled into the soft grass beside Obi-Wan, on the vantage point overlooking the shifting blue-green seas of grass far below. 

There was a gentle sadness in knowing that one of Luke's students would have been one of his Padawans, probably his last, in a kinder universe. The force had whispered to him of that thread of broken possibility the first time he had seen the youngling. Leyash, a tiny Alonshin with brightly brindled fur and alert amber eyes. It was never to be, now, like so many other things, but that did not mean that Obi-Wan could not take pleasure in Leyash’s bright Force presence, and his joy in life.

It was a pleasure to debate with Luke the differences in their Orders, sometimes in earnest as he tried to sway Luke on some point or another, sometimes merely taking the devil's advocate position to make Luke think things through. So many things had gone wrong with his Order, so many things accepted blindly as tradition, when they were crippling the Order instead. He would do his best to help Luke avoid what he could. This new Order would be strong, would succeed where his had fallen.

He sat across from Luke, now. Sitting on the surface of the ground and not sinking through it was a skill that had taken some time to perfect, but he could now. It was still strange not to be able to feel the sun on his face, the wind in his hair, the grass against his legs. 

But he could feel it in other ways, ways he had not known were possible, before. Feel the life moving from the sun into the grass, feel the way the plant life around them took it, transformed it, feel the motion of the planet beneath them, its place in its solar system. It was easy to get lost in. 

He had his little amusements to keep himself busy and grounded, though. Namely tormenting old Padawans. Anakin was off sulking somewhere, probably haunting Leia like the adoring puppy he was. He was ridiculously proud of his daughter, and tended to follow her around thinking encouraging thoughts at her and coming back to tell Obi-Wan all about the amazing things she had done today/this week/month, how brilliant she was, how much like her mother. She was probably Force-sensitive enough to sense him even if he didn’t choose to physically manifest to her, but if she had she’d never said anything directly.

That only left one target. 

Luke cracked one eye open from his own meditations and gave Obi-Wan a sidelong look for the mischief he had to be radiating into the force.

"What are you planning?" He asked warily. He might have a right to it. The look of hilarious betrayal on his face the first time Obi-Wan had unleashed his particular brand of deadpan humor on him had been priceless. Obi-Wan supposed it had been his own fault for being overly serious with the boy when they had first officially met, but really. Those had been pretty extremely extenuating circumstances. He couldn't possibly think he was that serious *all* the time. Though, convincing him that, no, really, meditating upside-down was a time-honored Order practice had been hilarious, and the result had provoked one of the first laughs out of Anakin that he'd seen since his Padawan's redemption. 

He’d had fertile ground, after the ridiculous things Yoda had made him do, how could Obi-Wan not take advantage of that?

Luke couldn't possibly be too mad, since it was actually a great method of practicing fine levitation control. The joke had ultimately been on Obi-Wan, though, when Luke had retaliated by convincing the younglings that, no, really; the next time Obi-Wan manifested where they could see him, he really really wanted to tell them all about his political blunders as a Padawan. So they could learn from his mistakes, of course! 

Obi-Wan had a very difficult time saying no to children, he has found. 

“Oh, nothing to worry about, young Luke,” Obi-Wan said, placatingly. “What could an old man have done to -- 

Pain.  _ Wrenching _ . Darkness. What he had hoped to never feel again; the tearing  _ rip _ as not one, or two, but many Jedi died nearly as one, deaths steeped in fear and Darkness. 

Deaths at the hands of a Sith.

Where once Jedi lights had been numerous in the Galaxy, now only one place held so many, could be the source of so many dead at once. Something had happened at Luke's Academy.

Obi-wan paused, concentrated. 

Without a word to Luke, who was already pale and running for his transport, Obi-Wan vanished. 

They had only been on the other side of the planet, seeking some peace and quiet for the afternoon, to talk, and to meditate, on the uncertain swirls of the future they had both sensed. But  _ now? _ It would still take too long, would  _ be _ too long before Luke could get there. 

Obi-Wan had to try. 

It was harder every day to make the Force relinquish him when he willed it, to move through it from place to place and not find himself stuck. To exist in this half-state, not fully one with the Force. But he had promised himself that he would stay, would see the reconstruction of the Jedi.

And now they were  _ dying _ . It took longer than he wanted, longer than he thought it could, as the feeling of Jedi joining the force went from a flood back to a trickle. Too long. He had to get there, had to find out what had happened. 

With a tearing wrench, he forced himself to Manifest in the large classroom in the middle of the school.

The bright summer sun shone through Obi-Wan, his transparent form casting not even a shadow. That was wrong. This room boasted large windows, but something had blasted the roof off, had charred the cheery yellow walls, and painted them with blood.

For a second, he couldn't comprehend anything but the rusted blue pool of blood congealing on the carpeted floor directly in front of him. His mind was a mess of frozen shock at the mental dissonance between what he was seeing, and what should be.

"Leyash.” Obi-Wan managed the boy’s name on a cracked whisper, denial gripping him by the throat and squeezing. Obi-Wan remembered vividly the boy’s bright and cheerful Force presence. It had perfectly matched the brilliant grin he had turned on the manifestation of 'Master Luke’s Master' whenever Obi-Wan had visited. The boy had been so pleased to see Obi-Wan, the first time the boy’s mastery of the Force was strong enough to let him see the Force Ghosts when they chose to manifest. Not phased in the least at chattering at someone who was both blue and see-through. Grinning, grinning, as pleased with this as he was with every aspect of life.

That was a grin, Obi-Wan had thought, which should have been terrifying, full of sharp teeth as it was. It had been sweet instead, as Leyash had demanded stories from the older Master about everything under the sun. His favorites were about Master Luke’s childhood, he had told Obi-Wan, blinking up at him innocently.

Looking for gossip, the incorrigible little thing. Obi-Wan had gathered him and his few fellow troublemakers close and told them all about the time Luke had tried to ride a Bantha, and about both the owner’s and Uncle Owen’s displeasure after he managed to send it rampaging through the market. Oh Force, had Obi-Wan been glad he’d been in town that day. He hadn’t laughed that hard since he’d found out Mace was teaching the human sexuality class at the Temple the rotation Anakin had to take it. He hadn't laughed at all, he felt, since the dry wisecrack Rex had made at Anakin's expense about a week before Order 66 went out.

Rex had been commenting, dry as Tattoine dust, about the kind of stories the veterans told the 501st shinies about their new General. Obi-Wan had taken one look at the furious blush on his former Padawan’s face, the wicked light in Rex’s eyes, and had folded over on himself, laughter half-hysterical from stress and lack of sleep, but genuine despite that. He’d laughed, and laughed, until Anakin had stalked off, his posture full of wounded dignity, hiding a delighted grin of his own. Rex had sprawled next to him, pleased as a well-fed cat while threatening to bribe the 212th’s “General Kenobi” stories out of Cody. That was a good memory. There hadn't been a lot to laugh about, during the War.

It had been one of the last happy moments. No more laughter in those last desperate days of the war. Days of betrayal and heartbreak and countless dead. Or in the long years since, of fighting, running, trying to help the Alliance, and protect Luke, and battle his own demons. Not until that moment of childish adventure by his Padawan’s son, his one remaining piece of Anakin.

He’d been immeasurably glad he had recognized the signs and managed to get himself back into the wasted land between town and his home before the laughter had turned to great, wrenching sobs. His control wasn't the best, at times like that. The last thing he had needed was to project that much negative emotion in a place as charged as Mos Espa, especially not with Luke there. 

It would have turned the streets into a bloodbath.

He'd been responsible for enough death and destruction in his life without endangering Anakin's son with his failure.

But here, in Luke's bright, flourishing Academy? In this new incarnation of the Order he had loved, and watched be destroyed? Here in this existence where his Padawan was restored to him, still broken, still mending, but once more walking in the Light? Here the joy in the Force was nearly a physical presence, and he could laugh more freely than he ever remembered, even as an Initiate.

Obi-Wan had sensed a canny diplomat in the making when Leyash had managed to bargain that particular story of rampaging Banthas to Leia for sweets, without ever revealing his source. Not that the vaguely pissy, betrayed look he’d gotten from Luke the next time he visited didn’t mean Leyash hadn’t told on him eventually. The boy had gotten a new set of katas out of Luke for the information though.

Obi-Wan had been so proud.

Qui-Gon had laughed, and Yoda had sighed that, train others to be just as much trouble for their Masters as Obi-Wan had been, he should not. Though the old Grandmaster’s long ears had been twitching with suppressed amusement. Even Anakin, who never made his presence known to the younglings, and only rarely to Luke, had been laughing openly at his master, his amusement saturating the Force around them, bubbling enough joy from his immense Force presence that even non-sensitives would have been able to feel it.

When Obi-Wan threw a conspiratorial wink at Leyash, Luke had just thrown his hands up and walked away, muttering good-naturedly about finding blackmail on the lot of them.

There was nothing of that joy here now. No trace of Leyash’s bright force presence, of the steady joy that was the hallmark of Luke’s new Jedi Order reverberating from the walls. There was only Darkness, and pain. Rage and hate and jealousy stained the walls, the very air. The negative emotions were practically a physical presence in the Force.

Obi-Wan reached out, wanting nothing more than to sooth away the tuft of fur that had fallen into Leyash’s eyes. His hand passed through the boy’s skin, and he jerked back from the cold nothing. No life force, no presence in the force. Not even the simple comfort of touch. He wished he could reach out, now, could pull the youngling from where he hung impaled.

Leyash had been thrown by something into an exposed piece of metal protruding from the destroyed wall. Left to bleed out.

Obi-Wan had arrived just in time to feel the boy pass on into the Force, his heart finally giving out after who knew how long spent staring at the bodies of his fellow students, helpless and scared.

His passage into the Force had been barely a flicker of blue as his spirit fled straight through the half-state Obi-Wan existed in. Had he paused, Obi-Wan would have been able to comfort him. Instead, Obi-Wan had been left with an impression of the once-bright life fleeing, sobbing, for the comfort of the Force, of oblivion and oneness and peace.

Obi-Wan wished briefly for that himself, and hoped that the boy found solace in those who had gone before him.

He turned a slow circle, numb with shock. The Academy buildings were in ruins around him, smoke threading resentfully through the air from the fires smoldering at the edges. The floor was covered with bodies clad in Jedi tunics. Younglings and teens, a few adults, all cut down by blaster fire, and horrifyingly, the tell-tale marks of a lightsaber.

They were all dead. Ashana lay half over the body of her brother, Tanak, shielding the younger from whatever had attacked them. A lightsaber had stabbed straight through both of them. Dei was cut in three. That had been no lightsaber. Not cauterized, hir green blood had splattered the walls around them. Kryysakk was so marred with blaster fire that his fur was nearly burned away. Jess, Ren, Yun’k, Hidan, all of them dead, and more, too mutilated to be recognizable.

It was unfathomable that he was once again surrounded by the bodies of shattered younglings. 

Anakin had felt the turmoil of this moment too, felt that wrenching feeling they had both hoped never to experience again. He was here now, manifesting for the first time in this space he had never dared to before. Not wanting to taint the younglings with his presence, no matter how much anyone protested that he would not. That he now once more stood in the Light, and could interact with them without fear.

Now he knelt at Dehsaa’s side, the tiny Togruta girl who must remind him of Ahsoka, his own dear lost Padawan. He was cursing harshly, tears and rage streaming from him in great waves to join the Force around them.

Obi-Wan felt him reach out into the Force, felt him *demand* that it show him what had happened here. Obi-Wan caught the vision through their bond, heard Anakin’s cursing give way to an agonized scream when he found out who exactly was responsible for this.

Obi-Wan was numb. Not killed by his Padawan. Not this time. But slaughtered by his grand-Padawan. By the boy that would have been his great-nephew, had they all lived in a happier universe. 

Killed by Anakin’s grandson, twisted into darkness just like Obi-Wan’s Padawan had been. Killed by his grandson, killed in his name. In the name of the monster he had become. The monster in his own soul that he had slain for love of his son, and died in the process. 

(Love had been both his downfall and salvation. Two kinds of love: jealous and selfless, but no matter how much Obi-Wan argued that this was a lesson the younglings could benefit from, Anakin had refused to appear to them. It had been a lesson that Obi-Wan's Order could have done with. That love, that attachments, properly managed, could save as easily as they could condemn, and that the benefit of the former should not be discounted for fear of the latter.)

Obi-Wan should go to him. He should go to his Padawan and try to comfort him, try to bring some measure of solace to this insanity. But what solace was there? Luke’s order, the hope of the next generation of Jedi, killed by sweet little Ben. The boy named after Obi-Wan himself, who Obi-Wan remembered best for his strength and determination, and the time he had talked Luke into the fact that the Academy really, really needed to adopt a litter of kittens to serve as mascots.

The bodies of those kittens’ grandchildren were among the rubble, not even those little lives spared. 

He could see Qui-Gon materializing at Anakin’s side, face devastated with grief even as he opened his arms to gather Anakin to him. There was a bare moment when Obi-Wan felt Anakin’s rage try to swell, the Dark try to overtake him, and a shadow-flicker of Vader’s helmet and cape fluttered around him. Then Anakin gulped in a breath that hitched with incipient sobs, and released that rage back into the force, embracing the grief it left in its wake. 

Obi-Wan was too numb to be proud of his Padawan’s firm stand in the Light. 

Anakin’s manifestation shifted to the scared, sobbing little boy he had been for so much of his life, yet had never truly been allowed to be. He clung to Qui-Gon like he used to cling to Obi-Wan in those earliest nights in the temple, lonely and frightened.

Obi-Wan should go to him, but he couldn't. His vision was darkening at the edges, the images of the dead swirling before him, present melting into the past. All he could hear was the crash of droid boots against the ground, and the echoing cacophony of blasters. Bodies falling all around him. Friends falling. His men falling, no matter what he did to prevent it.

He couldn't breathe. He didn't need to breathe. He hadn’t needed to in over 20 years, but he had never felt the lack, or the need, more keenly. He was panicking, and he tried to control it. He hadn’t had an attack like this since he died. Never had one this bad since his third year on Tatooine, shaking, sobbing, curled into his bedroll, hands over his ears as he tried to block out the sounds of death and dying all around him.

Whispering prayers for the dead in every language he knew.

No meditation had helped him then, none of his vaunted Jedi control had blocked out the images. Dead clones, soldiers sacrificed for a pointless war. Enslaved by the Republic, and by the Jedi. The Jedi, all the Jedi dead, down to the babes in the creche, the innocents in the Corps, each death leaving the Force feeling emptier and emptier, one, two, a flood, until he was numb from the shock of so many severed bonds. The civilian dead, cut down by the droid armies wherever resistance occurred, or the Separatists needed to send a message. The children were the worst; little bodies, lives snuffed out practically before they could begin. 

Obi-Wan could barely comprehend it, the first time, as a Padawan, witnessing genocide on Isadoro. Whole families slaughtered in their homes over nothing but prejudice, fear, and greed. It had never gotten easier, no matter how many times he witnessed it. And now? This?

It was too much.

Standing under the bright summer sun in the ruins of Luke’s new Jedi academy, something broke in Obi-Wan. Something that survived life as a Jedi, and the War, Order 66, the slaughter of the younglings and the Corps, the Rebellion, the long years watching Luke grow up, and even survived with him into his death at the hands of the twisted shell that had had once been his Padawan. (Something that had been born in the remains of his heart as Cerasi fell to the ground before him, dead.)

Something utterly unJedi, that simply said “no.” That refused to accept the tragedy, refused to even begin to release his grief and rage and depthless sorrow to the Force.

Something that compelled him to reach, down into the depths of the Force that he had never touched before. Something that denied, and screamed, and flashed back to every time he had been forced to stand there, helpless, too late to fix anything.

Surrounded by squandered promise and life-cut short, Obi-Wan, the Negotiator, High General Obi-Wan Kenobi, dug in his heels.

No.

This was not to be borne. This could not be right, could not be fate.

This was cruelty, and the Force was not cruel.

The Force simply was.

Ignoring Qui-Gon as he yelled for him to stop, that he would burn himself up, ignoring Yoda's disapproving, worried words, Obi-Wan tipped back his head and screamed his pain out into the Force. Channeling every scrap of Force he could muster into the feeling that it was not supposed to be this way. 

He felt Anakin’s Force presence rise to meet his, following his lead as he ever had, working in the kind of concert that had made them the best damn team the Order had ever seen. Acting with the reckless disregard for their own safety and sanity that had given Rex and Cody both fits.

Steady and grounded in his goals, even when those goals were nebulous, impossible, the Negotiator’s power swelled with the unflinching, unyielding determination that had confounded his enemies and held the line of War against impossible odds. The Chosen One, who’s destiny lay uncertain behind him, before him, joined his voice and his power to Obi-Wan's, tidal, as overwhelming as it had ever been. His own child’s scream high and piercing, reverberating with determination and righteous anger, before modulating into the deep, forceful roar of denial his Knight had unleashed the first time he had lost an entire fleet of men to the Separatists. Their bright Force presences winking out like ten thousand candles in a gale.

This atrocity could not continue to repeat itself over and over and over again. Jedi younglings killed by one of their own. Here, at the Temples, in the Corp. The bodies of his clones strewn over the battlefield, war all their short lives had known. The schoolhouse on Yithika full of children he hadn't been able to save, mowed down by the Seperatist armies while the 212th raced to evacuate the city. Their tiny bodies broken and charred, and he was too late again. Too late to save them, to do anything but offer them a pyre and a place in his own Remembrances.

The orange sky over Yithika burned. There was smoke all around him. The tiny bodies in the Yithikan jewel-toned clothing melded with the tan-and-cream of Padawan robes, and the Force screamed around him. Light crested behind his eyes, burst from him. An inferno rose under his skin, and swelled to overtake him.

And everything seared itself into darkness.

~~~~

Cody could feel the plas-compound of his gauntlets creaking under the pressure of his clenching fists. He tried to relax his hands but found he couldn’t. This was, this was...

_ Ori’suumyc _ .

Even for droids, this was vile.

The smoke was still rising around them, small rumbles rattling as the destroyed walls settled, cascades of pebble-sized rubble tumbling to the ground every few minutes as the bombardment of Yithika’s capital city continued. 

It was not safe here, the battle still too close, but Cody could not bring himself, yet, to interrupt his General. He gestured for Spark to update command on their position. The lieutenant, young but steady, stepped away to murmur into his com unit. The yellow sunburst on his helmet was grimy with the dust that had settled there when he entered the collapsing building. He was a good officer, quick of mind and body. He’d been the first to arrive, of the troopers Cody had sent pelting after his General when the man had suddenly gone white and bolted in this direction, leaving the battle lines to Cody. 

By the time Cody had delegated enough to follow, it was all over but the grieving.

Cody watched his general fall to his knees, a hand coming out to smooth the hair of one of the humanoid children in the room, his grief practically radiating from him.

And then… then it actually  _ was _ , grief and anger and so much pain nearly knocking Cody’s knees out from under him as it swirled around the room, so thick it was practically visible, and Cody took a step back, waving his troops to do the same. Cody knew their general would never hurt them, but he also had never seen a Jedi do anything like  _ this _ , not even Skywalker. 

He was utterly unprepared for the General to  _ scream _ , and it was rage and sorrow and Cody staggered back another step as it hit him, and another as pure  _ light _ burst from his General, blinding. 

The light flared even brighter before snuffing out, leaving Cody blinking back reflexive tears and wishing for his bucket. 

Then he cursed and ran forward, not quite making it in time to catch his General before he collapsed into a boneless heap on the ground, surrounded by the little bodies they had been unable to save, jewel-bright clothing a sickeningly cheerful contrast to the limp forms. 

He got his fingers on Obi-Wan’s neck, breathing out a harsh, relieved breath when he found a pulse, heavy, fast, and stuttering like it didn’t know what it was supposed to be doing, but even as he gathered himself to scream for medical it smoothed out under his fingers, settling into a quick but steady rhythm. 

He looked up and met the stunned, startled gazes of the troops around him, all of them focused on the collapsed Jedi in his arms. 

“That was exciting,” Spark remarked, finally. “I so claim dibs on not having to explain whatever that was to Skywalker.”


End file.
